Sentimentum
by Kuchinatsu
Summary: It is fact that great understanding is borne from great love. There is nothing to fear. Z3.


**Sentimentum**

_It is fact that great understanding is borne from great love. There is nothing to fear._

**-X-**

_Sky Lighthouse. Highest point of the Heavenly Realm. 3,077 meters above the Town of Delfoy, an estimated 10,000 meters above the Grounds._

**-o-**

The air is thinnest up on the Cloud Plateau, sheer pinnacles launching upwards to slice tufts of cotton clouds into ribbons. Gossamer thin. Stretched out. Expansive. Above, a bright blue dome, infinite and empty save for the spill of sunlight; below, a world sprawled before its floating base, like the miniature toy sets that children love to play.

On the roof of the Sky Lighthouse, a lone woman stands. Winged feathers fluttering in the blustering gale, the color of Plateau rocks the streaks of brunette in her hair, Isel sings:

"Daughter of the grandiose skies  
Stands on the edges of yonder heights  
Lonely soul in a lonely world  
Oh where has the wind  
Dropped  
Your most precious love?

Walk the walks  
That old bones cannot tread  
Let the wind sweep  
Sweep you up  
Off to where the beating heart lies  
Forgotten  
And waiting  
To be found."

The wind howls as it strikes rock, its throttling hum tune to a roiling melody. The beam of the lighthouse swerves—ninety degrees, precisely—, and its light diffuses as photons descend to skim the mountaintops of the Grounds, thousands and thousands of wing beats below. The tower, a solid beacon for lost souls; she, silent vigil of all the lands. There is nothing to refute this. Blood shivers through capillary webs; red irises make their seismic contractions—and the world lays prone, splayed out for her to see. To observe.

Daughter of the skies. Girl soaring above the winds. As it should be.

As it should be.

**-o-**

The Sky Lighthouse: beacon to a sailor out in stormy sea, light from a lamppost to a shivering moth. Wanderers may be few and far between, but the man she spies from the observation deck is no helplessly lost soul.

At least, not lost in the physical details of where to go.

"Hello," Isel says, gliding down from the tower to greet him. The man stands at the very brink of the precipice—feet spread shoulder-length apart—, and she sees no need to step out that far.

The man's neck twists, head dipping down to acknowledge her. "Hello."

He is quite tall. Tall enough to loom over her even though there is naught a difference between them in terms of age—at least, she suspects so. Of course, with the Divine Tribe, it is always hard to tell. This fact, she notes, like how she notes the foreign pull and push of muscle as she cranes her neck up to see. Young, and already, care-worn lines have begun to dig their grooves into his face. Fair enough. Young adult is a self-contradictory label, anyway.

"Are you fond of observing the Grounds, as well?" She tilts her head, wondering what this man sees. A parallel to the Heavenly Realm they are standing upon, perhaps. A topographical metaphor; a mathematical equation. Here is a land to conquer. So great, so difficult—yet from far away, so very, very small.

"I'm afraid I do not know much about them," the stranger affects, and a mild quirk of his lips mellows out the hard lines of his features. His hand makes a movement—aborted—and resumes its resting position, clasped at the small of his back.

"Oh, I don't know much either," she returns. Observation and questioning are two disjointed actions, after all. "But see over there—" She stretches her arm out, finger pointing down towards the blur of craggy grey lines. "That speck of green? I can't find any other, up so far away. It must be quite a pleasant place; I do wish I could see, from up close."

She waits for another response. But save for his noncommittal humming, the man is not quite forthcoming. Still as a Plateau spire, he gazes out like a gargoyle, and Isel beats her wings purely for the sake of contrast.

There is another, better question to ask, but this will have to suffice. Isel flips a few locks of her hair—back and forth, back and forth, inane superfluous movement—and asks, "So, what is your name?" Winces. Hands covering mouth. Eyes cautiously flickering upwards.

If anything, the man's smile inches wider. "Pardon me for the lack of introductions," he says gamely, "my name is Temir."

"Isel," she answers in turn. What is in a name? "Keeper of the Sky Lighthouse. As you can see, rather estranged out here." She bites her lip. "So I'm afraid that..."

"Oh. Once again, my mistake." Temir waves his hand. "I'm from Paramanon, part of the Divine Cavalry. One of the captains, in fact."

Only one word in that statement was necessary, but Isel smiles anyway. "It must be very stressful," she says. "I hope taking a breather out here helps you relax."

A dark flicker flitters across his face. "Yes, well," Temir sighs. "There is always work to be done. I do not have quite as much leisure time as I would like..."

"I think you must have plenty of time." Temir freezes, feathers stiff, and Isel smirks. "You are doing what you want to be doing, after all."

"I suppose..." The man trails off, turning around fully to pin her with a wary gaze. "And how about you?"

Isel bends down to pick up a pebble, idly rolling it around in the palm of her hand. "Doing exquisitely, thank you for asking." A small, lightweight mass, hardly worthy of notice. However. They are standing ten thousand meters above the Grounds, and since acceleration due to gravity is estimated to be nine point eight meters per second squared...

She tosses the pebble behind her instead, the stone making _clack clack_ noises as it bounces across the Plateau. Temir's eyes trail after the pebble, and Isel smiles. "While lots of these pebbles are round and smooth enough," she remarks, "I wouldn't suggest playing a game of marbles out on the ledge."

Temir's gaze remains affixed on the stone—rolling in a large arc, judging by the sound; and now clattering incessantly as it stutters to a stop. "I must challenge you to a game, sometime. Instinct tells me you are a worthy opponent."

Isel giggles. "If you ever need help, in anything, you know where to find me," she says. "It's a promise."

Temir blinks again. "That is a very generous offer." He inclines his head. "I will remember your promise."

Isel hums, saying nothing more of the subject. "Paramanon, you said?"—Temir smiles wryly—"Go west a bit, and then it's a straight path north. No forks. May the Gods be with you."

The man bows. "Thank you for your time, m'lady." His wings stretch with a shudder, and then he is off, hurtling down the drifting stepping stones of the Cloud Plateau.

Isel smiles. Spinning on her heel, she sweeps her feet—smooth stroke of a brush—, and a few pebbles rain down over the outcropping. She will have to adjust the scope to focus closer to home, for the next few weeks.

(She does, and is not disappointed. Then again, she had been confident in her perceptions from the very beginning. It is not expectations, per se, that receive reality's scorn. She is far above skewed hopes.)

**-X-**

_Paramanon Great Temple. Mountainous region of alpine permafrost. 1,149 meters above the Town of Delfoy, an estimated 8,000 meters above the Grounds._

**-o-**

Seven years later, she makes good on her promise. Isel leaves the stalwart monolith and its lofty peaks with nary a backward glance, and not over a month later, she and Temir are married.

"You little rascal," Shaman Lewiel laughs. "Who will man the Lighthouse now? Alas, alas, the dilemmas tossed unto me—"

She chuckles alongside the wizened grandmother. By returning, it is true she is flying right up to the foul rictus of her foggy schematics, but it is no matter. The inside of the Great Temple is a starburst of rainbow colors; but outside, the snow falls year-round across Elraum. An innumerable number of Divine Tribesmen wade deep tracks through the snowdrifts, but with the gale's wailing cry and blizzard's obfuscating moan, all of this is negated.

(Distance was never the issue.)

"I am sure you will find someone suited for the post, Pontifex," Temir says, an odd amalgam of deference, consolation, and sardonicism that makes Isel bubble with mirth.

"Tis the will of the Gods," she says, patting Lewiel lightly on the shoulder. Her fingers linger in place for a few moments. "Don't worry yourself so. Otherwise I'm afraid that your head will become white as snow, and my new husband will get lost trying to search for you."

Shaman Lewiel huffs. "I should pinch you for your cheek," she mutters, in time to the sycophantic thumps of her staff. "Enough. Keeping up with the games of the robust makes me tire." At the doorstep, she pauses to send back a final glance. "Enjoy yourselves. May the Gods look upon you two with joy."

The reception continues. The benign smile on her face feels more and more plastered on as they graciously receive their well wishers. Finally, once they've mingled enough to satisfy etiquette mandates, Temir wraps one sturdy arm snugly around her shoulders as he guides her out the temple doors.

In the insular hospitality of their new bedroom, Temir flicks on the lamp and sits on the edge of the bed. He pulls open the drawer of the small bedside counter, brings forth a pouch from its black maw, and spills its contents onto the mattress.

The clicks and clacks of glass beads echo in the silence. Temir looks up at her, still leaning against the pine-finished doorway. In the heavy, solemn tones native to his voice, he says:

"I challenge you to a game of marbles."

Isel blinks, then brings her hand up to her mouth, drawn open in a small 'o'. Quiet, disbelieving laughter spills from her lips, and she remarks dryly, "You know, not going on a honeymoon is one thing. If our well wishers knew our first night together as a married couple was spent—"

"Humor me, sweet." Temir smiles. "I have been waiting seven years for this match."

There is something about playing innocent children's games, at this point in time, that is on the brink of collapsing into terribly maudlin territory. Isel shakes her head, walks forth to give him a quick peck on the lips—"I'm rather undecided on whether I should feel honored or slighted that you've whisked me away for this"—, and seats herself on the opposite bed corner. She leans toward the center and fingers one lush, shining marble, glowing a shade of vermilion like that of hibiscus petals in the soft pool of lamplight.

When she looks back up, gaze locking with that of her imminent adversary, her own mirror-red eyes are sparking with challenge, lusting for their own form of bloodshed.

"General Temir," she coos mockingly, "I hope you don't emerge from this battle utterly destitute."

A forbearing smile tugs at his lips. And with that, the game is on.

**-o-**

Considering the speed at which she and Temir were betrothed and married, the Divine Tribe is predictably flummoxed as the years whip past by, and her stomach stays as flat and taut as the day she came skidding down the Cloud Plateau.

The old bats, in particular, are agitated by Temir's continued lack of an heir apparent. Shaman Lewiel casts her a shrewd gaze whenever she drops by their doorstep these days, basket of herbs dangling off one arm, and declares terribly unsubtle things like, "A cosmic foretelling today: the Sun. While there is a lull in the war, it is a time ripe for..."

In these instances, Isel offers up a congenial smile, then slams the door shut in her face.

"Now that," Temir chuckles breezily, "may not have been so wise."

Isel waves a flippant hand. "Any perceived dearth in manners can be readily attributed to the quirks of my former hermitage," she retorts blithely.

He wraps his arms low around her waist, and she feels rather than sees the curvature of his chapped lips as he smiles into her shoulder. "Do not be so chafed, love," he soothes. "Despite their worries, I've no retirement plans prepared."

Still, thirty-two years down the line, the tribe breathes a collective sigh. The valley, a giant cradle ready to welcome a newborn in their fold—it is no time for them to bite the dust yet. From the earth, the Divine Tribe were born, and like the testament of the snow-capped peaks that have been a permanent fixture in Isel's life, they've an age before erosion weans away at their years.

**-o-**

The first six months of her pregnancy pass with very little fuss, except for the one day when she vomited her meal up whole, and attained a newfound penchant for sweets.

Halfway through her third trimester finds Isel on the outskirts of town, walking slowly around Elraum valley, wrapped up in a heavy cloak. Temir—who rarely makes use of his liberties—anxiously hovers at her side. After being holed up for the entirety of autumn and a grueling long winter, the beckoning of a clear day was too alluring to resist. Biting chill or not. Swollen and heavy or not.

Suddenly, a sharp pain ripples up through her pelvis, drawing out a low hiss from her throat that has nothing to do with the cold. She topples into the ground, as Temir's eyes ignite with panic and worry. He weaves a hand beneath her to span the space between her two shoulder blades, but she pushes him away.

"No," she gasps. "Get the midwife. Quickly."

Temir runs. Her hands convulse as she twists her fingers in the soppy snow.

"You choose a very inconvenient time to act up," she pants out between labored breaths. "And here I thought you'd be a quiet little baby."

The heat pounding in her veins and flush crawling over her skin runs counter course against the piercing iciness of powdery snow. "This cannot be good for my bones—" another wave of pain "—you better be worth it."

Save for the sensation of being torn apart in two, it is still a relatively smooth birth, her child finding no need to dawdle. Arms weak and aching, her body is wrung dry of all its energy, but still curled protectively around the wailing mess that is her baby.

When Temir runs back with the medic at his heels, his expression is a scrunched grimace of devastation. Isel rolls her eyes at his melodrama, before succumbing to the throes of exhaustion.

When she comes to, she is cushioned in the soft layers of their bed. Her newborn—clean, now— resting in the crook of her arm, Temir with a chair pulled up beside her, heat undulating from the crackling merriment of the fireplace.

His face waxes into relief as he watches her eyes open. "Hey," he calls softly, "the Archangel gave us his congratulations." His finger hooks on a new necklace strung around his neck, silver and blue pendant winking in the lurid light.

She doesn't know why the sight bothers her, really, until she glances down at her baby—who is also blinking blearily up. His irises, flashing with the steely underside of a coming storm, churning with the blue of turbulent winds—and Isel's heart gives a distant pang.

**-o-**

Isel remembers quite clearly that the first feathered strands of hair on Luxferre's head were black as his father's. A few days later, she sees a strand of white instead, and she hastily plucks it out.

"I can't have you aging faster than the old bat now, can I?"

Over the course of the next few weeks, though, the entirety of Luxferre's head turns a silvery white, and there is no more plucking. She resigns herself to acknowledging that her baby boy will grow up faster than she can blink.

Still, he is very much his father's son. Before she knows it, Isel watches as Temir brings Luxferre out to Elraum valley, observes with palpitating heartbeats as chubby hands wobble when they attempt to wield the heavy weight of a sword.

"He will grow up a fine warrior," Lewiel says. "An exemplary member of the Divine Tribe."

Isel snorts. She tugs Luxferre's hand, toddler-sized yet already rough with calluses, and steers him up the steep incline. Warrior spirit or not, she knows something that any buoyant child would delight in seeing.

**-X-**

_Town of Delfoy. Forested region, below water levels as marked by the Lorela River. An estimated 7,000 meters above the Grounds._

**-o-**

Her second baby is an autumn child, eyes red as hers and the leaves falling outside the eaves of the house, and she would like to comment to their new next-door neighbors how their children are spirits of transition—one for the life of spring, one for the death of autumn, and don't they complement each other so nicely? But this is more awfully accurate than it sounds, and soon, there won't be any joking.

"Temir!" Her fatigue is one that runs bone deep; she has no strength left to keep the tremor out of her voice, and that alone is almost enough to silence her. However, she barrels on anyway. "Don't leave us here."

Temir, framed in the square arch of the doorway, turns—slow, reluctant. His wrinkles crinkle ever deeper, the stamp of time left all over the architecture of his bones. "Forces of the Devil Tribe are nearby the Tree of Life," he says, voice low. "The battle for our survival is about to commence. I must lead our tribe in battle—" a sharp inhale "—you know what'll happen if I don't."

Isel knows this. Isel also knows about living untouched of worldly affairs, secluded by the geology of stones. There must be some—"But think about our child," she implores. "What'll happen to him?"

Unconsciously, Temir takes one step, then another, to her bedside. She thinks she has him now, but then Temir shudders to a stop, eyes clenching shut and mouth twisting a torturous line. "Our nameless child," he breathes, brushing the boy's forehead and wispy curls with surprising tenderness. "I'm sorry, son."

His eyes return to Isel's, and his hands move away to the nape of his neck. When his hands withdraw again, glittering silver lays in the flat of his broad palm. "Isel," he says, tugging forth her wrist and letting the mithril chain slither into her clammy hand. He closes her hand within his fist. "Pass this necklace onto our child."

Isel looks down on their clasped hands, the alien ease with which they have always slotted together. "Isn't that the memorial pendant presented by the Archangel?"

Temir nods. "This necklace will reunite us in the future." He gazes steadily into her eyes for—one, two, three—stretched out seconds, and in the last moment, the grip of his fingers tighten—hard.

Then he lets go.

"Luxferre," he intones flatly, "let's go."

Her eldest son, who was previously quietly hunched next to the doorway, starts. He glances at Temir, then Isel and his little brother. He tugs on his lower lip with his teeth.

"Mother," he eventually bites out, crouched low at her side. "I'll come back alive. So please—" He tries again. "Please look after my younger brother."

"Luxferre," she whispers.

But stormy eyes have already tempered into refined steel, and her boy is rising, raring and ready to go. "Goodbye, mother."

Isel's face crumples. She pulls the bundle in her lap closer to her chest, trembling fingers fumbling with the clasp of the chain as she draws the necklace around her baby's neck. Like a chokehold. Like a chokehold. She sobs, forehead pressing into his, as she chokes out a bitter farewell.

Crushed beneath her, their nameless baby—what is in a name?—peals open liquid red eyes, and bawls shrilly.

**-o-**

The sentinel's cry echoes across town: "Devil Tribe! Enemies have invaded the area!" Next are the gut wrenching screams, and frantic cries and pleas for help.

"How could they have traveled so quickly," Isel mutters furiously to herself. She deposits her sleeping baby into his wickerwork basket, then glances around agitatedly. But their Delfoy home is small and sparse and lacking in hiding—

A malicious cackle resounds behind her, and Isel freezes, back to the door, basket shadowed by her petite figure.

"Oh?" Isel bites her tongue as blood wells up her throat, iron blade running through her stomach. She collapses as the sword withdraws with a wet slurp, and the basket jostles slightly as it clatters to the floor as well. "There was one more here."

"N-n-no..." Blood pools all around; she wills herself to latch onto the pain.

"Get out of my way," the Devil Tribe soldier orders brusquely, looming over her shoulder to look at her still snoozing baby. "I'll take this one for dinner!"

Her eyes narrow in a glare.

There must have been a thousand mothers before, as there will be a thousand to come after her—all with different dispositions—, who have made, who will make, the same decision that she makes here today.

(There are some things that can outlive even the weathered rock faces of ancient mountains, and this is just one of those things.)

They are all fighters, in a way.

"_Dimensional portal!_"

**-X-**

_Iris Cliffs. Edging right beneath the alpine tree line. Grounds; 360 meters above sea level._

**-o-**

She drops her lips against the forehead of her unnamed baby—blood red against alabaster white, with force enough to bruise, but not enough to brush away the tears.

Between them, only one to remember their story, and no one left to tell the tale. She should have expected something like this, really. This is life, in all its wartime progressions. Divine favor or not.

But already, she feels as if she is sinking into this grassy green bed, loamy soil eager to swallow her weight. The sky above is infinitely vast, the edge of the cliff just as sheer—and she thinks back to a time, high above the clouds, when she would aim a beam of light down upon a green speck of the Grounds.

Deep within the Tree of Life, the Great Creator dredged up the earth with its roots. He breathed life into clay vessels with the help of the wind, and so the Divine Tribe came to be born.

And when their life blood spilt unto the soil, they would dissolve into ash and feathers, dirt and wind, and to the Great Creator, they would return, they would return...

(She only wished that—)

Isel takes in one last, gasping breath, wind whistling into her collapsing lungs. Weak fingers tracing the links of the memorial pendant strung along her son's neck, and with her final breaths, she sings:

"Child of the grandiose skies..."

**-X-**

**end**


End file.
